Team Scutterbots
Team Scutterbots (later Team Spawn Again), were a team from Essex who fought in Series 3-7 of Robot Wars, both series of Robot Wars Extreme and the first season of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors. Captained by Darren Hayden-Ball for the majority of the team's run, Team Scutterbots reached the Semi-Finals in four out of the five main UK series they competed in, with the sole exception of Series 7 - their final televised appearance. The team sometimes referred to themselves as The Essex Boys. Team Scutterbots comprised of several Ford Motor Company employees, captained by Graham Warner, with his colleagues Darren Hayden-Ball, and Oluremi Idris. Idris did not return for Series 4 and was replaced by Luke Jackman. After Graham Warner left the team, Team Scutterbots consisted of just Jackman and Hayden-Ball from Series 5 - which remained the case until the end of the original series. The Team Darren Hayden-Ball Darren Hayden-Ball (known as Darren Ball until Series 6), was the captain of the Essex-based team in every one of the team's campaigns bar their debut series in the Third Wars. Hayden-Ball was the team's main speaker when introducing the robot - even when Graham Warner was the team's captain in Series 3. As part of Team Scutterbots' attitude and image, Hayden-Ball often joined Graham Warner in making short, to-the-point comments about the opposition. When the team became a two-man job, despite Luke Jackman often offering both positives and negatives about the robot, Hayden-Ball often solely acted with joking-resignation. Despite the stress of maintaining a machine being evident at times, Hayden-Ball always made positive comments about his time on the show - stating in multiple post-battle interviews with Craig Charles about how Robot Wars was always 'a laugh' to be involved with. Luke Jackman Luke Jackman was the only of the Team Scutterbots' members to first appear after Series 3. Despite this late start, Jackman ended up being a mainstay afterwards, and once he and Ball became a two-man team, Jackman took a bigger speaking role on the team. Jackman's comments were particularly notable for being one extreme or another. During the early stages of a competition, and when the seeded Spawn Again was the favourite to win a fight, Jackman often confidently predicted his machine to win an upcoming fight in ruthless fashion. However, when Spawn Again was seen as the underdog - especially against a destructive machine - Jackman visibly aired his fear of the battle ahead with both body language and speech. In these instances, Jackman often acted emotionally and with no confidence - memorably saying "I want my Mum!" when Spawn Again was defeated by Razer in the first round of the Semi-Finals in Series 5, as well as holding his head in his hands when Spawn Again beached itself over the Pit against the same machine in the Extreme 2 All-Stars championship. Amusingly, Jackman had "Spawn!" written and underlined on the back of his head in felt tip in Spawn Again's Series 5 Heat. Other post-battle interview antics include a moment after Spawn Again defeated R.O.C.S. in the second round of Series 7 - when Craig Charles rubbed his hands over Jackman's head. Jackman was on the wrong side of an error on Spawn of Scutter's statistics board in Series 4 - where only his first name was present. Graham Warner Graham Warner was one of the three original members of the team, and the captain of Team Scutterbots during Series 3. Often trash-talking the opposition with witty remarks and one-liners, Warner was also present for Series 4 and Extreme 1, before his role on the team came to an end. Warner notably appeared during the opening minutes of Series 4, as part of buildup to the seedings montage that followed. Oluremi Idris Oluremi "Remi" Idris was the third member of the team during their debut series. Despite only appearing in one campaign, Idris was memorable for a running joke between he and Philippa Forrester throughout the series. In the interviews before and after fights, Idris consistently mentioned that it was "judgement day" for Scutter's Revenge opponent. After Scutter's Revenge's run was ended by 101, Forrester once asked when judgement day would be, with the team amusingly stating it was postponed until next year. Branding During their first series, Team Scutterbots wore basic, white T-shirts which featured the Robot Wars logo on the top left, as well as wearing black trousers. After their debut series, Team Scutterbots came back in Series 4 with a visual overhaul in an attempt to outdo Team Plunderbird's hard-man reputation. Most notably, the team sported specially branded T-shirts, which featured the "Spawn" logo at the top, a number of skulls in the midriff, and a "Resistance is Futile" slogan at the bottom. Blacked-out glasses, and reversed baseball caps completed the team's appearance. With the addition of dog-tags, sunhats, and jewellery, Team Scutterbots added to their look during Extreme 1 and Series 5, before switching to more basic T-shirts, and - in Darren-Hayden Ball's case - a sleeveless, black jacket in Series 6. These tops featured the name of the machine in gold colouring, with a black base for the shirt itself. Rivalry with Plunderbird and Image Despite not immediately slipping into their bad-boy image which followed in subsequent wars, Team Scutterbots still showed off their typically-Essex personalities with witty one liners and typical hard-man remarks - with examples of this after the second round fight against Thermador, and before the Heat Final vs. Pussycat. They also appeared in the same Heat as Plunderstorm, and despite not facing each other because Thermador defeated Plunderstorm, it still helped inspire many of Team Scutterbots' future appearances on the show. In Series 4, Team Scutterbots developed their image significantly - both visually, and with their dialogue. The team's desire to outdo the Plunderbird team also made evident, with the team stating that it needed to be sorted once and for all which team was the hardest. Once again, the potential of this fight was dashed by the International Wreck Crew, as Plunderbird 4 was defeated in the second round by Knightmare before it could fight Spawn of Scutter. The next two incarnations, Spawn Again and Plunderbird 5, both entered the War of Independence during the first season of Extreme Warriors, but both were beaten in the first round by their opponents. The chance for the two teams to fight each other finally came around when they were drawn up against each other in the Tag Team Terror during Extreme Series 1, with Comengetorix and Bigger Brother, partnering the two, respectively. Despite Bigger Brother's pedigree, Team Scutterbots reiterated their interest was only dealing with Plunderbird 5, with Graham Warner stating that Plunderbird 5 would have to learn how to fly due to Spawn Again's weapon. However, this never came to fruition because Plunderbird 5 was forced to pull out of the battle after the robot accelerated into the arena doors before the fight. Despite their bad-boy personas, Team Scutterbots made a gentleman's agreement with Team Nemesis before their Heat Final fight against Diotoir - where the winner of the fight would Pit the defeated machine, so that it would avoid further damage at the hands of the House Robots. This didn't go according to plan, however, as Spawn Again failed to carry out the pitting after flipping Diotoir over - which allowed Sgt. Bash to carry out his traditional torching of the Irish machine. This Heat was also the only time where Team Scutterbots and the International Wreck Crew were not in the same Heat. After S3 beat Plunderbird 5, it was retired, leaving the rivalry between the two as one of the biggest unresolved grudges in Robot Wars. In Series 6, Extreme 2, and 7, Team Scutterbots largely dropped their bad-boy personalities, instead often opting for absolute negativity or extreme confidence before and after fights - with the latter part especially relevant when the machine faced large repair jobs. Robots Scutter's revenge official image.JPG|Scutter's Revenge (Series 3) Spawnofscutter.jpg|Spawn of Scutter (Series 4) Spawn Again S5.png|Spawn Again (Extreme 1) Spawn Again.png|Spawn Again (Series 5) Spawn Again S6.png|Spawn Again (Series 6) Spawn Again EX2.png|Spawn Again (Extreme 2) Spawn Again alternate blade.jpg|Spawn Again (Series 7) Wins/Losses *Wins: 17 *Losses: 11 Series Record UK Series US Series Trivia *Despite reaching four Semi-Finals, the team never managed to win a battle in any of their Semi-Final appearances, going out in the first round of the semis on each occasion, the record for the most Semi-Finals reached without winning a battle in any of them. *The battles between Spawn of Scutter and Knightmare and Spawn Again and Raging Knightmare respectively meant that Scutterbots/Knightmare became the second of three rivalries (after Team 101/King Buxton and followed by Pulsar/Ironside3) where both teams reached a Semi-Final or Grand Final by defeating the other. *On three of four occasions, Team Scutterbots met or exceeded their projected finishes on their seedings (placing in the Top 16 on a 10th seeding in Series 4, a top 12 on a 13th seeding in Series 5, and a Top 12 on a 10th seeding in Series 6). Only in The Seventh Wars did Spawn Again fail to meet expectations. Category:Team Pages Category:Competitors in 5 Wars Category:Teams who reached the semi-finals with two different robots